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May 23, 2016

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Home » Business » Autotalk Special

You are what you drive: it’s becoming more so

By Anna Lu | May 23, 2016, Monday | Print Edition

IMAGINE a car as an intelligence command central, analyzing data coming in from all directions, steering a smooth journey clear of pitfalls and insuring that everything is in place at our destination.

Better still, this command center doesn’t need keys for activation. It can be set in motion with special gestures or encrypted messages.

What may sound like film special effects is actually a vision shared among carmakers to integrate our vehicles and our motoring life into the Internet of Things.

A glimpse into this world of the future was highlighted at the 2016 Asia Consumer Electronics Show held in Shanghai earlier this month. It showed us smart automated transportation, as the digital age engulfs the automotive industry and the vehicles we drive.

Buzzwords abound: Manufacturing Road Map 2025, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Supply Side Reform and the Internet Plus Initiative. All refer to China’s policy visions related to upgrading the manufacturing base, including the auto industry. Cars will no longer be just stand-alone transport tools. They will be connected to all aspects of our lives in one unified cyber realm.

Digital technologies can give machines nerve networks, programming their triggers and responses to become one “organic” body. Mercedes-Benz and BMW have already flexed their muscle with the advent of digital transformers that can adapt to the environment.

The new mechanism for their aerodynamic performance is sensor-based and data-driven, with part of their body adjustable to set new world records of drag coefficient, which measures resistance of an object in a fluid environment like air.

Mercedes-Benz’s IAA concept, which stands for “intelligent aerodynamic automobile,” achieved a drag coefficient as low as 0.19 by automatically switching from a design mode to an aerodynamic mode at a speed of 80 kilometers an hour. Panels deployed from the front, rear, and sides of the car improve air flow.

That was the record for drag coefficient until the BMW Vision Next 100 concept car pushed the figure down to 0.18 with its “alive geometry” exterior. The movable wheelhouse covers have numerous three-dimensional red triangles, coordinating an elastic skin that stretches and contracts according to the car’s steering movement for optimal aerodynamics.

With artificial intelligence introduced to replicate “self-consciousness,” cars are increasingly becoming personified. Carmakers want their products to be the centerpiece of our digital lives.

The cars of the future will act as valets summoned at the fingertips. By pressing the key for the new BMW 7 series or swiping the smartphone app for the new Mercedes-Benz E Class, we can order automated parking and pick-up, eliminating the frustration of trying to squeeze awkwardly in tight parking spaces.

The cars will act as security guards. Volvo accepts phones as keys, while the latest OnStar telematics of General Motors enables us to access the car with special gestures to be picked up by the smartwatch we wear. Both innovations rely on a passive entrance program run on the smartphone app.

The cars will also become messengers, giving us a heads-up about traffic conditions via a dedicated platform, like the Car2X cloud set up by Mercedes-Benz.

Taking that one step beyond, when combined with high-precision maps, the cars will become a navigator with clairvoyance, as in Continental’s dynamic e-Horizon. With deep “learning” capabilities, the likes of BMW’s connected real-time traffic assistance can remember our favorite routes.

They can even extend their role to run errands for us – like booking a restaurant table, reserving a hotel room, pointing out charging spots for electric cars and facilitating package deliveries by transmitting a time-limited digital key via the smartphone for deliveryman to access the trunk when we are not around.

In Stockholm, Volvo was the first to commercialize the “deliver to car” service. Recently, it teamed up with a start-up company called “urb-it” to provide delivery access within two hours of an e-commerce order being placed. By 2025, the company said it aims to turn Volvo cars into moving drop-off sites in 200 cities around the world.

What makes cars even more like our housekeepers is their ability to remotely control home appliances, like rice cookers, air purifiers, air conditioners and robotic vacuum cleaners, when we aren’t at home. It’s not just for the sake of convenience. Over the next 10 years, with more and more cars going electric in China, recharging at home — after work and before sleep — will become a pressing issue for power grid allocation. That can be tackled only from a connected home perspective in coordination with other household appliances.

In China, OnStar of General Motors is in partnership with domestic home appliance maker Midea to launch a first smart home application later this year. Ford, teaming up with Haier, has been experimenting with its MyEnergi Lifestyle. That aims to create maximum “holistic” energy consumption in Beijing and Shanghai households.

Home, where most of our days begin, is where a car can bring its digital prowess full circle in a smart connected system.

The magic Mobility Mirror of BMW, a high-resolution display hung on a wall, can tell you which route is the most time-saving and which charging options are most efficient in light of personal appointments.

When there’s nothing pending, the display will function as an ordinary mirror. When it senses the car key is being picked up, it can trigger the automated pull-out of the car from a garage. That’s how our future day with cars may start.

Autotalk Special


 

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